This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

A highlight of Cinematheque Ontario's recent series on the Berlin School of young German filmmakers, Jerichow is striking proof of the country's resurgence as a hotbed of provocative new cinema. That said, what's most remarkable about Christian Petzold's arresting, intelligent neo-noir is how the film reworks and recasts source material long familiar to moviegoers.

Though Jerichow is not officially a remake or adaptation, it's clearly patterned after The Postman Always Rings Twice. James M. Cain's classic 1934 novel about a handsome drifter, his lover and her ill-fated husband has already yielded two screen adaptations. John Garfield and Lana Turner starred in the 1946 version, while Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange famously got hot and heavy on a kitchen table in Bob Rafelson's 1981 remake.

Much like Luchino Visconti relocated Cain's story to an Italian trattoria for his 1943 film Ossessione, Petzold puts this steamiest of crime melodramas in a fresh context: an economically depressed German town, from which Jerichow also gets its title.

Article Continued Below

In Petzold's contemporary retelling, the drifter is Thomas (Benno Fürmann), a gaunt ex-soldier who's come back home after the death of his mother. Though there's little work to be found there, he gets a job as a driver for Ali (Hilmi Sözer), a Turkish immigrant who runs a group of local snack bars. The growing bond between the taciturn Thomas and the distrustful yet emotionally sensitive Ali is not enough to discourage the driver from becoming involved with Laura (Nina Hoss), Ali's German-born wife. Nor are we surprised when this fiery-eyed beauty turns out to be more ruthless than Thomas can handle.

As Cain memorably foretold so long ago, nothing good can come from the resulting stew of fraying loyalties, rising passions and murderous intentions. But Petzold's decision to keep the action at a low simmer rather than a full boil allows him to emphasize the cultural, social and economic differences and divisions that doom the characters just as surely as their basest lusts do.

The film's bracing final scenes confirms the success of Petzold's strategy. Using Cain's story as a combustion engine, he has crafted an incisive and unsettling parable about the plight of immigrants trapped within the decaying structures of what Donald Rumsfeld liked to call "Old Europe".

Mind you, the German characters aren't any better off. Just as in any classic film noir, no one in Jerichow gets out clean.

Delivered dailyThe Morning Headlines Newsletter

The Toronto Star and thestar.com, each property of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, One Yonge Street, 4th Floor, Toronto, ON, M5E 1E6. You can unsubscribe at any time. Please contact us or see our privacy policy for more information.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com